Scary stuff. Jefferson would turn over in his grave if he could see what copyright has turned into in this country.

Click to expand...

Jefferson, along with the others would've just stayed in Britain if they had had access to a crystal ball and saw how the country would turn out. Under their ideals, we the people would be traitors. Make no mistake, the government is trying to rule us in every aspect of our lives, but we gave them the power to do so.

On topic, it's just this sort of crazy thing the government WOULD do or at least try to sneak through in some other massive bill that no one would read.

Scary stuff. Jefferson would turn over in his grave if he could see what copyright has turned into in this country.

Click to expand...

As no one is alive still from the time period what Jefferson would or would not do it guessing including my idea on what would have happened.

In my opinion and knowing that the Founding Fathers were businessmen and lawyers they would have added anything dealing with file sharing into the laws that govern US citizens from the start and I doubt they would have been citizen friendly where theft and infringement of others work was involved.

This is based on the time period in US history where morality was strong and theft from others was met with swift punishment.

In my opinion and knowing that the Founding Fathers were businessmen and lawyers they would have added anything dealing with file sharing into the laws that govern US citizens from the start and I doubt they would have been citizen friendly where theft and infringement of others work was involved.

This is based on the time period in US history where morality was strong and theft from others was met with swift punishment.

Click to expand...

Then you most certainly are unfamiliar with the writings of Jefferson (and Madison) on copyright and patent. I suggest you read some of his writings on the matter, the Federalist Papers covers some of it. The very concept of what is today known as "intellectual property" was anathema to him. Copyright and patent as spelled out in the US Constitution was a compromise as it was concluded that perhaps a limited period of exclusive rights for authors and inventors may be for the common good.

Then you most certainly are unfamiliar with the writings of Jefferson (and Madison) on copyright and patent. I suggest you read some of his writings on the matter, the Federalist Papers covers some of it. The very concept of what is today known as "intellectual property" was anathema to him. Copyright and patent as spelled out in the US Constitution was a compromise as it was concluded that perhaps a limited period of exclusive rights for authors and inventors may be for the common good.

Click to expand...

I am very familiar with the history of this country thank you though for assuming otherwise.

I based my statement on the legal system & mentality of the 1700s as applicable to "IF" they had computers and file sharing.

Instead of assuming things about people that do not agree with you perhaps in the future you might ask why they disagreed.

Though we have, over the past few years, become accustomed to rather strange, aggressive ideas from those who run the movie and music businesses, the latest move from the RIAA and MPAA is a little astounding.

That article showed one prime example of the benefit of piracy over paying. The picture with the beginning of the movie?..Yeah, that. Over the last couple of years, DVDs have no longer given the option to fast forward through previews, warnings, and all that junk. You can now (on most DVDs I see) only get right to the movie once the actual title screen is up. You may call me impatient or picky if you'd like, but I paid for the MOVIE, not the other stuff.

Another thing the RIAA and, in some cases, the MPAA should consider is that some artists/bands, and some movies not only got discovered through P2P, but actually ended up selling more of their products because of it. To sell and to be known, you need exposure. Someone show me a better way, any better way to achieve both than to have your product tossed up on a large torrent site and passed around to literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions of users. I honestly don't think anyone can.

Me, I ADORE CDs and Vinyl. Not because of the better quality music (Sorry young'uns, Vinyl is where it's at in regards to quality), but for the artwork and the liner notes. I LOVE that, and I always will. But I have to admit that being able to hop online and download a song or album in 5 minutes or less, is FANTASTIC. The RIAA has got to understand that if they ever, ever want music labels to make money again, the focus has got to be withdrawn from physical media and put into download-able media.

It saves money for them because they don't need to have mass-producing factories churning out physical goods, along with the costs of materials and contracts (you are aware that almost the entirety of that 13-15 dollar CD you buy is paying for the actual factory production costs and not to pay the label and artists, right?). It will make money for both them and the artists because they cut out factory costs and, when the money is shelled out for everything else, there is a larger piece of the pie left for the artist/band.

They also don't get that, simply because of human nature, their threats, DRM schemes, suing and other methods do nothing more than stoke the fire of piracy. People generally assume that if they actually buy something, it is theirs to do with as they please. That's not exactly too much to ask. Yet we always end up having to go through hoops just to play a file in a different location, on another player, make a copy, all of those useful, and often necessary things.

The same goes for movies. I mentioned this elsewhere, but to go see a movie right now, I have to pay the roughly 10-13 dollar ticket fee. If I want a drink (you generally do in a long movie), that's about 3 or so dollars. If I want some popcorn or a box of candy, that runs about 5 dollars. That right there is 18-21 dollars, just for me. Bring a family member or even a few members, and you can do the math. After that, I get to sit in what USED to be a quiet, peaceful theater, but has now turned into a room filled with the glow of cell phone screens, Nintendo DS units, and yacking teenagers and adults chirping away with others either with them or on the other end of those phones...for often 3 or more hours....with the movie more often than not absolutely sucking, as movies these days tend to do.

No thank you, I'll head to a torrent site. When they learn all these lessons, I'll open my wallet. Until then, gotta go, a good copy of Alice in Wonderland finally popped up at my favorite "evil" torrent site.

Even if this insanity becomes law, I want to see them force that software onto any of my PCs. Bring it on you greedy slime.

Click to expand...

I would imagine the only way to effectively do this is to:

A: Have it pre-installed on pre-built systems and/or a part of the OS.

B: Force ISP providers to not only roll it out on software they provide to customers (in the form of the "security features" they often bundle with their service), but also enforce mandatory use of such software.

Neither option would easily go through, Federal muscle or not, due to the many, many technical issues, PR issues, funding, and so on. Can it happen? Of course. Is it very likely? Not at all. To me, this is the RIAA and MPAA admitting to themselves that their previous aggressiveness has not worked, and, quite likely, they are possibly getting a bit frustrated at throwing money at court cases, lawyer fees, and so on, just to not only witness piracy continue, but also grow.

"A" would only work with new systems.
"B" would be a joke as they'd have to make versions compatible with every OS in use on the web, Linux, Unix, MAC, BSD, new and old Windows. If they tried to require you to have a compatible OS just to have internet access, they'd be setting themselves up for a legal nightmare.

If by some insanity it ever reached the point that I had to have such a system to have web access, I would unplug from the web first.

Ah, right... because when you need to sell overpriced poo for ridiculous prices, then it's easier to bribe your legislators to get the money, simply because people are not stupid enough to pay for junk they'll delete after they've listened to/watched it once anyway (mostly not even the entire thing, since it sucks that much).

I personally find it astonishing how much valuable music and movies have been produced some 30-40 years ago, and people still watching and listening. The today's junk - 99% of it is plain garbage and downloading free music from the internet placed there by artists themselves will give you more value than paying the behemoths for their commercial crap.

doktornotor is right but go back even earlier almost 50 years, and don't forget those fabulous 60's records, from many genre's

Admittedly most of the "so called" music made in the last 10 years at least is disposable junk. But i wouldn't say 99% of it is plain garbage, definately over 90% of what heard is though

The thing is 99.9% r of people under about 25 - 30 and especially teens, havn't had the oppourtunity to hear the vast majority of ALL those ORIGINAL classic sounds from yesteryear, as they don't get played on the mainstream radio/tv they listen to.

They have more chance of hearing them in films that use them, and/or commercials, and then only a very small amount of what's available. What they do hear more of are remakes of previous hits, which in my opinion, and lots of others, are not a patch on the originals. How sad

***************************

I don't blame artists and copyright holders from wanting to be paid for their work, don't we all. But this proposed system is doomed to failure from the start.

doktornotor is right but go back even earlier almost 50 years, and don't forget those fabulous 60's records, from many genre's

Admittedly most of the "so called" music made in the last 10 years at least is disposable junk. But i wouldn't say 99% of it is plain garbage, definately over 90% of what heard is though

The thing is 99.9% r of people under about 25 - 30 and especially teens, havn't had the oppourtunity to hear the vast majority of ALL those ORIGINAL classic sounds from yesteryear, as they don't get played on the mainstream radio/tv they listen to.

They have more chance of hearing them in films that use them, and/or commercials, and then only a very small amount of what's available. What they do hear more of are remakes of previous hits, which in my opinion, and lots of others, are not a patch on the originals. How sad

***************************

I don't blame artists and copyright holders from wanting to be paid for their work, don't we all. But this proposed system is doomed to failure from the start.

Click to expand...

To be fair, every decade has had its crappy music and movies. Heck, even some of the best artists/bands and film directors that have ever lived have produced the occasional turd. I think a lot of things have brought down quality, one being concentrating on only one part of the population (8-12yo girls and the parents who buy for them), the "get in and get out" attitude of a lot of artists these days, who don't care to spend what used to be months and months of studio time. Now, if they can't write enough material to fill up an album within a week, they'll just either shorten the album, stick on material they previously made and weren't really happy with, or "re-make" a song. More often than not though, they'll simply do a remix or acoustic version of a song already on the album.

A lot of issues stem from record labels not giving an artist or band as much leeway to write or record what they want as they used to. Labels have always had their say, unless you were just so on top that they gave you complete control. But the "tightening of the leash" has been happening more frequently in, I'd say the last two decades. While I'm on corporations making the decision on what we hear, I have a comment for Disney and Nickelodeon: Stop! Stop giving kids a TV show and deciding they automatically get a record deal along with it. It has been said that Disney has a new "star" waiting in the wings for the moment that a previous "stars" spotlight goes dim. There's this one kid now on, I think "Victorious"?, on Nickelodeon. She JUST started her show maybe a week ago, and already they are concentrating on her singing on the show. Give it a rest.

Okay, *deep breath* movies. Movies, what can I say?....Oh, yes, stop putting the same 3-4 actors and actresses in films *glares at George Clooney*. You cannot tell me that in the entire world, heck, even in the entire cities of New York and L.A, there is not someone good enough to get a chance besides the same people that demand you pay them 20 million or more just to sign on for a film...not even assuring they'll FINISH it. Also, the previous decades have had classics such as E.T, The Goonies, Officer and a Gentleman (I'm a child of the 80's, sorry, I'll get on to more "classic" films.)

What happened to timeless movies such as The Graduate, The Godfather, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Back to the Future (dang right it's timeless, lol), Tora Tora!, Casablanca, Miracle on 34th Street, all of these movies that had true plots, true good and bad guys? What do we get now? We get "Hot Tub Time Machine" (no joke, that's the title of a new release this year), we get comic book after comic book being turned in to a movie...I'm sorry, it can't be done without sucking.

I'm not sure who is truly to blame here, the artists/bands and directors/actors for lacking creativity and not caring enough about their creations, or us, the people that for some reason continue to buy theater tickets and purchase albums to watch and listen to this stuff. Do WE just not care anymore? Have WE been turned into zombies, walking around with our open wallets loosely gripped? More on topic, are WE at fault for not yelling loud enough and using our votes to stop organizations like the RIAA and MPAA, and, our own governments from even having the authority to TRY to get such dubious schemes passed?

I agree with so much of what DW426 has said in this thread. Right on the money, my friend.

An aside about movies...So few are worth paying the astronomical prices. The big box office hits are often tripe. However, There are some truly great indie films that simply don't have the huge marketing budgets. Crazy Heart won an Academy Award for Jeff Bridges and most of the Academy had only seen it on DVD screeners. It was truly a great movie with no money behind it for marketing. There's tons of examples like this, but we don't know about them! Sometimes smaller is better.

I agree with so much of what DW426 has said in this thread. Right on the money, my friend.

An aside about movies...So few are worth paying the astronomical prices. The big box office hits are often tripe. However, There are some truly great indie films that simply don't have the huge marketing budgets. Crazy Heart won an Academy Award for Jeff Bridges and most of the Academy had only seen it on DVD screeners. It was truly a great movie with no money behind it for marketing. There's tons of examples like this, but we don't know about them! Sometimes smaller is better.

Click to expand...

Actually, if you want to see what movies and music was like years ago, and, if corporations and others would get their heads out of their behinds, the future of movies and music, stick with the Indie scene. You would not believe some of the films and music that have nobody to back them, especially things coming out of foreign countries. There is a LOT of talent out there hungering for even the smallest break. Talent that would put the "stars" of today to absolute shame.

I've often wondered why people go through so much effort to get some of that music and movies. IMO, most of it isn't worth stealing, let alone buying. If it were completely up to me, I'd throw the TV out. It does seem like all the quality is gone. With movies, plots are replaced by special effects. Can't these writers come up with anything new? Those of us in "normal" jobs would be fired if that was the best we could do. I've never seen the point to buying a movie to begin with. How many times will you watch the same movie or show? For me, twice would be more than enough. I don't see how someone can watch the same movie or TV show episode over and over and get any enjoyment or relaxation from it, other than being bored to sleep. With music you can play it in the background while you do other things, at least with what I'd call music. Some of this new stuff has more in common with noise pollution, like rap. Lyrics for those who can't sing and music for those who can't play, combined banging and barking, a 4 letter word with the first letter missing.

I'm not sure who is truly to blame here, the artists/bands and directors/actors for lacking creativity and not caring enough about their creations, or us, the people that for some reason continue to buy theater tickets and purchase albums to watch and listen to this stuff. Do WE just not care anymore? Have WE been turned into zombies, walking around with our open wallets loosely gripped? More on topic, are WE at fault for not yelling loud enough and using our votes to stop organizations like the RIAA and MPAA, and, our own governments from even having the authority to TRY to get such dubious schemes passed?

Click to expand...

This is the real problem. YES to all of the above. These are not durable goods that we can't do without. It's one thing to buy disposable household goods or appliances when nobody makes any with quality. Why do so many buy bad entertainment? I have P2P on one system. Used to download music. I haven't in a long time, not because I'm worried about getting caught. It's been a long time since I've seen anything worth downloading. As for the last question, why we don't raise out voice, there's a clear answer. Most of us don't have the means. For the most part, letters and e-mails fall on deaf ears, unless there's money enclosed. We don't have access to media that reaches large numbers of people at once. The internet is not a substitute for that when people don't see what you have to say. The system is designed to keep us from being heard by any substantial number of people without handing over a lot of money. IMO, this entire system should be scrapped and started over, which will happen soon enough. It's going to collapse under its own dead weight.

Bahh, if you enjoy a movie or music and it really has emotion to it, you can watch and listen to it for years They can not only provide good times themselves, but recall past good times, maybe such as a hearing a certain song for the first time during a particularly good point in life. As far as what you said regarding our ability to be heard, yes, sadly a lot of it is true. We just have to remember that WE put officials where they are. Money can buy a lot of things, it can buy power, it can, yes, buy votes. But there are far more votes that come from us "little folk" than the bigwigs. We still count, we just have to stop being lazy, stop thinking we don't matter, and be persistent. You don't win a war by going to one battle and then going home.

Bahh, if you enjoy a movie or music and it really has emotion to it, you can watch and listen to it for years They can not only provide good times themselves, but recall past good times, maybe such as a hearing a certain song for the first time during a particularly good point in life. As far as what you said regarding our ability to be heard, yes, sadly a lot of it is true. We just have to remember that WE put officials where they are. Money can buy a lot of things, it can buy power, it can, yes, buy votes. But there are far more votes that come from us "little folk" than the bigwigs. We still count, we just have to stop being lazy, stop thinking we don't matter, and be persistent. You don't win a war by going to one battle and then going home.

Click to expand...

We're definitely on the same page. My movie collection is mostly made up of old classics from the 40's and 50's. I love the only film-noir classics with Bogart, Cagney, Alan Ladd, Sterling Hayden. I can watch those old movies over and over, and I do! I'm not only into old film noir - I've probably seen Woody Allen's 'Annie Hall' and 'Manhattan' dozens of times! I could watch the old Perry Mason/Streets of San Francisco/Barnaby Jones TV shows till the end of my days and be perfectly happy. But then, I grew up watching sixties and seventies television in America. TV is a whole other topic, talk about scraping the bottom of the barrel to get the lowest common denominator as an audience. Reality TV? Nah, give me an old Hill Street Blues any day (one of my favorite eighties shows).

We're definitely on the same page. My movie collection is mostly made up of old classics from the 40's and 50's. I love the only film-noir classics with Bogart, Cagney, Alan Ladd, Sterling Hayden. I can watch those old movies over and over, and I do! I'm not only into old film noir - I've probably seen Woody Allen's 'Annie Hall' and 'Manhattan' dozens of times! I could watch the old Perry Mason/Streets of San Francisco/Barnaby Jones TV shows till the end of my days and be perfectly happy. But then, I grew up watching sixties and seventies television in America. TV is a whole other topic, talk about scraping the bottom of the barrel to get the lowest common denominator as an audience. Reality TV? Nah, give me an old Hill Street Blues any day (one of my favorite eighties shows).

Click to expand...

The list of TV Shows that ruined television, in no particular order:

1. American Idol

2. Real World/Road Rules

3. "Top" anything, "Chef", "Model", you name it, it ruined things.

4. People's Court

5. Survivor

6. COPS (yes I liked it, but it did TV no favors)

7. The Osbournes (I LOVE Ozzy, but even he admits he hated it, and it merely led to more ridiculous related series).

7. The Osbournes (I LOVE Ozzy, but even he admits he hated it, and it merely led to more ridiculous related series).

Click to expand...

I had to laugh. Again, we agree. I have read where the success and low budget shows on HGTV (using real people) were a catalyst to many of the crappy "reality" shows. HGTV, when they began with their first shows "Design On A Dime" and that kind of thing; it was real people, the shows were inexpensive to make, but the shows were very useful. The same principle has been used to take real people, produce it as cheaply as possible, but put these 'real" people in the dumbest of situations with absolutely zero intrinsic value.

The RIAA/MPAA can go ~ Snipped as per TOS ~ them selves. there is no way in hell there is going to be any of their spy crap installed on my pc. If it became law and there was no possible way around it I would rather have no internet.